Question of the Day for Friday, April 5, 2013

Q. What is the relationship between Jesus Christ and the seven sacraments? Did Christ “invent” all of the sacraments, or were they made up by the Church over time — as one of my Protestant friends claims?

A. Here’s a reply from OSV columnist Msgr. M. Francis Mannion:

We cannot say that Christ “invented” all seven sacraments in the sense that he specifically and in detail devised all the rites and words of the sacraments. But neither can we say that they were “made up” by the Church over time.